Storage receptacles such as drop boxes, collection and deposit boxes, and safes are used in the utility, banking, and medical industries. Similar storage receptacles are used in the postal industry. These storage receptacles all serve to hold personal and valuable items. Utility and banking industries utilize these storage receptacles as a secure, after-hours convenience for customers to deposit bill payments, financial and personal documentation, and cash. Storage units and collection receptacles within the medical industries are often used to temporally store medicines for pick up and transfer. The postal service also utilizes storage receptacles for delivery and for temporarily holding incoming and outgoing mail until the mail is retrieved. Although these and other existing receptacles are designed to store articles temporarily, businesses and individuals are not always available to retrieve the content in a timely manner, which in many cases leads to theft of valuable items or information.
The ease of accessibility into curbside mailboxes, drop boxes, and collection boxes contributes to the increase in identity theft and mail fraud, both of which have been a primary concern of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and consumers for many years. Within the postal industry, not only are thieves tampering with mailboxes, but small businesses often gain access, not to steal, but to deposit their advertising circulars, failing to pay for postage and cheating the postal service out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in postage fees annually. Even when these receptacles are housed in brick, concrete, or other hard material, the risk of unauthorized access still exists, because the most vulnerable part of the existing storage receptacles is the service door.
The inventor hereof has recognized that preventing unauthorized entry and securing incoming and outgoing articles for these and other receptacles is the answer to eliminating these problems with theft. One alternative to controlling access is to simply lock the service door. A second alternative is to create a way to allow authorized users of these receptacles a way to freely and securely gain access. It is also desirable for these receptacles to have a means of notifying the owner/user that an authorized user has gained access. As a consequence, there is a need for a secure apparatus that controls access, safeguards incoming and outgoing articles, is tamper-proof, and resists prying into existing receptacles. Specifically, there exists a need for an attachment apparatus that controls and secures access into existing storage receptacles that are utilized by a vast majority of businesses and individuals on a daily basis.